It’s becoming tiresome, but we hope that this, finally, is it. After much strife, speculation and dilly-dallying India has once again announced a revised schedule for the auction of 3G spectrum. This time, the timeline set is as follows:

Feb 25th: Notice inviting applications:
Mar 19th: Last date of submission of application
Mar 26th: Publication of ownership details of applicants
Mar 30th: Pre-qualification of bidders
April 5th & 6th: Mock auctions
Apr 9th: Start of 3G Auctions

2 days after close of 3G Auctions: Start of BWA auctions

One immediate issue with the proposed timeline is that not enough time has been provided between the mock auctions and the auctions: telecom operators had wanted more time to prepare their strategy for the auction.

Do read our comprehensive overview of all the issues that telecom operators raised during a pre-bid discussion: “You’re Dealing The Cards, But We Can’t Play Blind”. The 3G auction notice, which is expected to be released tomorrow, will be most interesting.

Easing Investment Guidelines

This timeline also means that the Indian government will not be able to raise the Rs. 33,000 crores it was expecting from 3G auctions in the 2009-2010 fiscal. India recently changed the guidelines for foreign investments in the county: foreign investments have prior approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Investment or Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for initial investments, then they would not require fresh approvals. This means that existing operators like Uninor, Etisalat DB, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, among others, will not require approvals.

It’s becoming tiresome, but we hope that this, finally, is it. After much strife, speculation and dilly-dallying India has once again announced a revised schedule for the auction of 3G spectrum. This time, the timeline set is as follows:

Feb 25th: Notice inviting applications:
Mar 19th: Last date of submission of application
Mar 26th: Publication of ownership details of applicants
Mar 30th: Pre-qualification of bidders
April 5th & 6th: Mock auctions
Apr 9th: Start of 3G Auctions

2 days after close of 3G Auctions: Start of BWA auctions

One immediate issue with the proposed timeline is that not enough time has been provided between the mock auctions and the auctions: telecom operators had wanted more time to prepare their strategy for the auction.

Do read our comprehensive overview of all the issues that telecom operators raised during a pre-bid discussion: “You’re Dealing The Cards, But We Can’t Play Blind”. The 3G auction notice, which is expected to be released tomorrow, will be most interesting.

Easing Investment Guidelines

This timeline also means that the Indian government will not be able to raise the Rs. 33,000 crores it was expecting from 3G auctions in the 2009-2010 fiscal. India recently changed the guidelines for foreign investments in the county: foreign investments have prior approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Investment or Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for initial investments, then they would not require fresh approvals. This means that existing operators like Uninor, Etisalat DB, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, among others, will not require approvals.

Hold tight kids, internet privacy laws just got flipped upside down. An Italian judge found three Google executives guilty of violating the privacy of an Italian student who was bullied in a 2006 video posted on Google Video. The video resided on the site for two months before it was brought to Google’s attention and pulled. None of the executives were involved in any way in the making of the abhorrent video. Nevertheless, Italian judge Oscar Magi sentenced the execs to a six-month prison sentence but cleared them of defamation charges. No jail time is expected, however, since any sentence of less than 3 years is typically commuted in Italy for those without a criminal record.

As you can imagine, Google has responded with vigor. In a post on Google’s official blog ominously titled “Serious Threat to the Web in Italy,” Google calls the decision “astonishing” citing the assistance it provided to local police in helping bring those who uploaded the video (and bullied the autistic child) to justice. More importantly, Google says that the decision “attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.” On the surface, we have to agree. Here’s how Google describes the dystopian knock-on effect should this ruling take precedent:

“European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them - every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video - then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”

Google will, of course, appeal.

Google executives found guilty of violating privacy of student bullied on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over six months ago, Google announced it would start phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 on Orkut and YouTube, and started pushing its users to modern browsers. The search giant has now given a specific kill date for old browser support on the video website via a page on Google.com titled Solve a Problem: Upgrading your browser:

Support stops on March 13th. Stopped support essentially means that some future features on YouTube will be rolled out that won’t work in older browsers.

As you can see in the screenshot above, YouTube will have an interstitial appear when users on older browser try to watch a video on YouTube. Google says the interstitial will show up indefinitely every two weeks until the user upgrades to the most recent version of their browser. Google deems anything below IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0 as an “older browser.” Users on these browsers will still be able to watch YouTube videos, but additional features that Google plans to roll out may not be supported in these older browsers.

Late last month, Google announced it will end old browser support for Google Docs and Google Sites on March 1, 2010 and earlier this month, the company announced it would start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar by year end. Google is pushing both enterprise and consumer users towards newer browsers on all its Web properties.

Google’s stance on IE6 varies from Microsoft’s because the search giant does not need to support Windows XP, the operating system with which IE6 first shipped, as long as Redmond (which will support XP and IE6 until April 8, 2014). Microsoft, on the other hand, which has stated time and time again that it wants to see IE6 disappear as much as anyone else, refuses to force anyone to upgrade (though it’s worth noting that the software giant’s Office Web Apps won’t support IE6 either, just like Google Docs) and says the decision is ultimately up to the user.

Microsoft is trying to push users to upgrade by touting IE8’s many features over IE6, particularly in the area of security. So far, this has worked relatively well, as IE8 is the most popular browser, although IE6 is still used by about 20 percent of surfers worldwide, according to NetApplications.

Internet Explorer fans can now get a taste of the video elements in HTML5 without having to switch browsers, but the plug-in that gives IE an HTML5 boost has a long road ahead.

The European Commission has acknowledged receipt of three antitrust complaints against Google. It did not identify the companies and said it had not started a formal investigation.

Two law firms and a small business, all based in Southern California, allege that Yelp’s advertising sales strategy amounts to extortion. Yelp responds by saying it’ll fight it.

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch

After all of the kerfuffle earlier this week about Apple shutting down racy apps in the App Store, it appears that the company might be creating a special place for all of that suggestive and sexy content.

We received a tip and a screenshot (seen above) from a developer who pointed out the new “Explicit” category in the tool used to submit apps into the store.

While TUAW has not yet been able to confirm this, The new category could be the first sign that Apple may provide enhanced parental controls or even a separate “adult” App Store. This would not only maintain the revenue stream from these apps for both Apple and the developers, but would stifle comments that Apple is being too strict with providers of adult content.

We will update this story as it develops.

Update: The new category is corroborated by Cult of Mac and MacRumors as well.

Update #2: Cult of Mac reports the category appears to have gone missing, although we’ve heard that when it was available earlier choosing the category wouldn’t stick — so perhaps we’re seeing some iPhone OS 4 action here?

TUAWApple creating “explicit” category for App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google officially unveiled Buzz, their major step into social statuses through Gmail today at an event held at 10 AM PT. Within the hour, Yahoo PR was set in motion to let everyone know that they actually did this first, almost a year ago.

Here’s the humorous email that was sent out:

It’s been almost a year and a half since we first launched Yahoo! Updates – a social feature that lets people share their status, content and online activities and stay connected to what their friends and family are doing on Yahoo! and across the Web – and we wanted to share the latest on what’s happening with Updates:

• There are now more than 200 Yahoo! and third-party sites that feed into Yahoo! Updates – like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp and Yahoo! Buzz – allowing people to see and share updates such as when they’ve uploaded photos, changed their status, buzzed up a news story or posted a new restaurant review, all from Yahoo!
• Yahoo! Updates now appear throughout the Yahoo! network, in popular sites and services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo.com, and Yahoo! Messenger and across our content properties, meaning people can always keep up to date with their friends’ latest activities
• Yahoo! Updates are featured prominently on the “What’s New” section of Yahoo! Mail, which is used by more than 300M people worldwide. People can also update their status and share it with friends and family directly from the “What’s New” tab
• Yahoo! Updates are now available globally
• Additionally,  Yahoo! recently announced an expanded integration with Facebook that will allow people to connect with Facebook friends on Yahoo! and share Yahoo! content with Facebook friends as well
• Ultimately, Yahoo! sees social as an enabler and as a dimension that is part of everything we do—and everything people do online.

Let us know if you have any questions or would like to hear more about Yahoo!’s social features.

That’s all true, but all that really highlights is that Yahoo’s offering has failed to catch on in any meaningful way in the past year. It’s hard to say if Google or Yahoo have a worse track record when it comes to the social web. But at least Google is still pushing hard, while Yahoo recently gave up and announced it would outsource the majority of its work to Facebook. With Buzz, Google is going right after Facebook (and Twitter, and Foursquare, and yadda, yadda…).

But Yahoo wasn’t done take shots at Google Buzz with its PR blitz. The official Yahoo account on Twitter also chimed in noting that Yahoo Buzz, a product with the same name but completely unrelated, launched two years ago. Yahoo has an event tomorrow to talk about something. This could get ugly.

The Iranian government has officially banned the use of Gmail in the country, reports The Wall Street Journal. In place of Google’s email platform, Iran will allow citizens to use a State-sponsored national email service.

The ban coincides with the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic, which is expected to draw mass protests and riots from citizens who are both for and against the regime. Last summer, during the controversy surrounding the Iranian elections, Iran banned social network FriendFeed. Facebook was also banned around election time. As many other communications outlets were blocked around this time period, Iranian citizens took to Twitter as the main tool of choice to spread information about what is going on.

Already it appears that the government is beginning to crack down on text messaging. It should be interesting to see if Iran starts handing out bans on social networks like Facebook and Twitter if citizens begin to spread information about demonstrations and protests on the networks. Earlier this year, the country banned Badoo, a popular social network in emerging markets.

Photo credit/Flickr/dougcurran